Tuesday
by TrustNo1Scully
Summary: A continuum of the episode Monday from Season 6. Scully comes over to Mulder's apartment to see the water bed and help him "clean up" the mess.
1. Chapter 1

"I still can't believe you got a waterbed," Scully smirks, her gaze flittering to the floor. All she can hope for is him not seeing the expression on her face.

Shrugging, he closes his apartment door behind them as Scully stops a few steps before him as she takes off her coat. His hand already reaches out, wanting for her to pass along her coat so he can hang it up. She's come over so many times that they've worked out this subconscious routine.

She walks in, then he. He'll close the door behind them and he'll stretch out his hand to take her coat. She'll turn around, look at him, say something judgemental and then sit on his couch.

The same, over and over.

"Where did you even _find_ a waterbed around here? Haven't they…gone out a style not too long ago?" Scully asks again, this time her arms are folded and she's looking right into his eyes.

"_She wants proof, she wants to see it,"_ he thinks as he hangs up her coat on the rack behind the door.

"Scully I…listen, it's… really damp in there and I wouldn't want you to get…your shoes wet," he tries as she turns to the right, already walking over to his bedroom.

Quickly, he catches up with her. Trying everything to get her not to walk into his bedroom, which at any other time he would want her too, she does.

Standing in the middle of the door frame, she gazes at his room in unspeakable awe. A four-post metal frame which what looks to have a mirror ceiling sits in the middle of the tiny room. The carpet is at least two shades darker from its original due to the water that's soaked through. The actual water bed is sunken into the frame, heavy at the bottom due to the water that's collected. His bedside dresser is pulled away from the wall; the plug from his clock is pulled out and left on the wet floor. And a pair of black running shoes is left in the middle of the floor.

"Well, this explains _a lot._"

He shakes his head, trying not to let her see his smile, caused by her reaction and his own bad luck.

"This is why I was late…and I still don't understand why I have this…bed in my possession."

She laughs a deep genuine laugh that makes his break into a small chuckle of his own misfortune. She walks into his room fully, past the door frame to get a better look at the havoc the water bed caused both of them that Monday morning. She notices the shine on her shoes caused by the water, a damp cloth smell fills her nostrils, and a pair of his boxers on the bed catches her eye.

She clears her throat.

"So, you need to get the bed out huh?" she asks, looking past her shoulder at him.

Nodding as he bites his bottom lip, he walks over to her, "Yea I…I called the boys to come and help me get it out of here tonight."

She lowers her eyes, "I could help you now…it won't take long to get at least some of the water out."

He straightens his posture in an element of shock, "Are you sure? I mean…you don't have to do this…you're…"

"Gonna get wet, I know. I'd dealt with water before Mulder."

He laughs again, nervously at her words.

_The context. The meaning. _

"Sure…yea, let's get the pots and pans out and start cleaning this mess up."


	2. Chapter 2

The last time she could remember being on her hands and knees, scooping up water in a semi-rusted pot was when she was about twelve years old and on her father's boat. A tiny hole had made its way on the floor of the vessel and they were lucky enough to pan out the water as they made their way back to shore.

But this, this was a whole new level of panning out water.

"So Mulder, you just happen to wake up one day in a water bed and not question how or why it got there. You don't question the possibility of someone breaking into your apartment or the Gunmen leaving a practical joke but you can and will question my scientific ways even though they've been proven. Am I getting this right? Do you hear what's coming out of my mouth?" Scully asked as she looked over to her right where Mulder, in the same position as her, scooped another pan full of water.

"That's correct," he replies, unfazed by her and what he knows will turn out to be another one of her "this makes no sense" moods.

"So you came home one night from work or…from wherever you happened to be. You walk into your room and voila, a waterbed. So instead of looking for any signs of a break in or evidence, you decide to sleep in it," she retorts, brushing her hair away from her face which causes a few strands to become slightly damp. She sits back up on her legs, straitening her back as she looks at Mulder.

He continues to scoop up water from the bed – a hole they cut down the middle to get the water out faster – and pouring it into a bigger pot Mulder managed to find hidden away in a cupboard. The slosh of water elevates as he pours more water into the pot.

"Mulder?"

He looks up; his lower lip pouted slightly, "What Scully?"

She sighs, shaking her head as she pours another pan of water out from the bed.

"Scully, you didn't need to help me with this. If you thought that you needed to then fine, but if you just came over to poke fun at me for somehow owning a water bed that leaked then…and then you decide to make this embarrassment last longer by helping me clean up then…"

She stops again, looking over at him as she huffs out a long breath, "Mulder. I did not come over to make fun of you. I just didn't believe that you had a water bed that caused you to be so late to that meeting we had yesterday morning. Do you know how many times I nodded off by the boringness of it all?"

Staring at her, the silence creeps around both of them and the slosh of water heightens. He gets up off from the floor, standing before her which makes her seem even tinier. He feels his pants slightly dragging downwards from the weight of the heavy wetness of the cloth. This all seems so silly to him, so unnatural and knowing that it's not either of their faults.

"Scully, if you thought that I would have made the meeting less boring than you are wrong. I would have been nodding off right next to you."

She gets up too, standing in front of him. "If you think that going to the bank and dying at least 6 times was much more fulfilling than nodding off in a meeting with me was more important than…then I'm going home."

She turns away from him, walking out of his room as she shakes her head, "How could I have been so stupid? This was all just a game to him, to see how much it all got under my skin. Of course he bought that bed himself, with all the intentions in the world to use it. How could I have been so blind?" She grabs her coat before reaching for the doorknob, which she becomes unable to do as she feels Mulder's fingers wrapped around her tiny wrist.

"I didn't buy it to piss you off Scully, nor did I buy it to make it mean something that I couldn't say to your face. It…I don't know how or why it came to be in my possession and I'm sorry that we had to go through what we did yesterday at the bank. You know that I'd go sit through that boring meeting, especially knowing that I'd be sitting through it with you. I didn't mean for this to happen."

She turns to face him, his fingers unwrapping from around her wrist. Looking up into his eyes quickly, she feels her anxiety and anger simmer, "I'm sorry for this. For your water bed, the bank, the bomb. For, not knowing what the hell is going on all the time and I'm sorry for always trying to work my way towards the obvious and unintentionally hurting you. I'm sorry Mulder that you have to put up with me and that…that I can't see what you see most of the time."


	3. Chapter 3

Pulling the blanket around her, she takes the steaming mug from Mulder. Bringing her lips to the edge of the mug, she cautiously takes a sip. The warmth overrides the dampness from sitting and crouching on a soaking carpet. This time, she takes a much larger sip of the tea, reclining backwards on Mulder's couch.

"Looks like I put the right amount of sugar in your tea this time," Mulder jokes as he too, sits down on the couch beside Scully, a steaming mug of coffee in his hand.

"You didn't fill half the mug with it this time around, I'm impressed," she throws back at him, smiling as she tries to control herself from laughing and spilling her tea.

"I'm sorry I made you come over and get your pants all wet…I uhh…I didn't. Thanks," he fumbles over his words, his thoughts. He knows she catches onto his innuendo and it makes him wish he worded it much differently.

"_So much for getting the mess cleaned up."_

"Mulder, its fine. I just needed to do something today other than trying to figure out what exactly happened to us yesterday. What exactly happened to everyone, especially Bernard and Pam. I mean, she knew what was going on, she knew the outcome each and every time and her only wish was to stop Bernard. We only figured it out closer to the end you know, until we really understood that we had the chance and the power to make Monday right – to make it what we all needed it to be," she rationalizes as she studies her tea.

"Why is that such a bad thing? We had to the chance to wake up more than once on the same day and each time, we did something a little different to make it right," Mulder replies, looking over at Scully who continues to stare into her mug.

"The bad thing about this is that…Mulder, it's a one in a lifetime chance that we can't explain why or how it happened. Not every day – for the rest of our lives – will we ever be able to relive the day and make the right choices. Things happen Mulder and they happen on whim and it's supposed to be that way, it's not supposed to be picture perfect. It's not supposed to be a fairy-tale ending every day."

She looks over at him now, his face pulled into full contort and thought. She notices that the knees of his pants are damp, soaked through and darker in colour. His hands are clutches around his mug tightly, knuckles whiter than its tanned hue. His eyes linger on the wall before them, his television and a few books stacked on the floor, his coffee table worn and scuffed all along the edges.

"_He's studying his choices, his path. He's realizing everything he's done to come to this moment – right or wrong – he's here right now,"_ she thinks to herself until a lurching feeling overwhelms her.

"_I'm here too. With him. Right or wrong."_


End file.
